Welcome to a display of painted miniatures by Rick. Each entry has an explanation to the figure and the "step by step" instructions. Enjoy!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Reaper's Labella Demornay - 2105

Another rainy day, another figure! An opportunity to sit down for a few hours and crank out this wonderful sculpt. I've had this one sitting on the shelf for awhile (ok - I have a lot sitting on the shelf for awhile primed and ready to go) and it struck my fancy.

I originally had worked up a purple/pink paint scheme in my mind but I changed it at the last second to use a base of Terracotta and work that up to a mix of Terracotta and Skull White - the end result is more of a deep and dirty pink. I've improved my wet palette setup and that really helped - not only to get the flow of the paints and brush, but also the speed at which I can put down layers has dramatically increased. Here's a picture of the new setup:

What I've used is the plastic tray from a Reaper Miniatures blister pack. I chose this for it's size and that it's square in depth (the GW plastic is sloped on their blister packs). The "sponge" is from a GW blister pack - it is exactly the perfect size to fit inside the Reaper blister pack flat. Then I cut a piece of Wilton parchment paper (which I stole from my wife's kitchen) to fit neatly over the top of the sponge. Wet the sponge and wet the parchment paper on both sides and walla... an easy to create and use wet palette that keeps the paint thin for hours.

What I did was put a couple dabs of Terracotta (shade) on one side and a bit of Terracotta and Skull White mixed (highlight) on the other. Then I brought them together in a mix and blended the two colors so I had my entire spectrum of shade through highlights. The wet palette kept the colors in a prepped state for hours. From there I was able to paint. This is a thousand times easier than trying to mix into the white plastic tray the various colors and have them dry out after 10 minutes.

When I'm finished painting, I throw out the parchment paper and wring the sponge out to let dry. Simple cleanup. I suppose it would be easy enough to make a couple of these wet palettes in the case you wanted to hold different colors for a complex or large piece. I found the single palette had enough room (it's about 3" x 2") for everything used on this project. I haven't tried to save the paint overnight but I'm guessing a bit of plastic wrap over the top would do the trick.

Painting Instructions for Labella Demornay:

Step 01: Undercoat model with black primerStep 02: Use Terracotta as base coat on dressStep 03: Wash dress with 50/50 mix of water and Devlan MudStep 04: Layer Terracotta up to a 50/50 mix of Terracotta and Skull WhiteStep 05: Use 50/50 mix of Bronzed Flesh and Pallid Flesh on hands and faceStep 06: Wash hands and face with Devlan MudStep 07: Add more Pallid Flesh to mix and highlight hands and faceStep 08: Use Scorched Brown on hairStep 09: Use Bestial Brown on hairStep 10: Use Bubonic Brown on hairStep 11: Use 50/50 mix of Bubonic Brown and Skull White on hairStep 12: Use Shining Gold on necklace and beltStep 13: Drybrush Codex Grey on stone baseStep 14: Drybrush Fortress Grey on stone baseStep 15: Drybrush Skull White on stone base

2 comments:

I've been trying the wet pallet. It's interesting, though not as dramatic as I'd been told. I'm using old tracing paper but I'll try parchment paper. Do you have a problem with it bleeding to the edge of the paper and down into the sponge?

No bleeding problems at all - to me it's made a huge difference as the paint will stay in whatever consistency that I want it for a long time without drying up. Using the typical plastic dimple trays I start out with the paint too watery, then I would get a brief time of nirvana, followed by too thick. I've been too lazy to try extenders and all that junk. The wet palette has allowed me to set a drop or two of paint, a wee bit of water, and perfect paint consistency for hours. Even to the point whereby I started with a couple mixes of color x - moved on to color y - made a mistake needing a bit of color x touch up and my mixes of color x were still good.

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My foray into miniature painting - enjoy! Follow along through google friend connect or email (through feedburner). If you have something interesting to say then please leave a comment or drop me a note at my gmail address of rickajr.